


For Hearts Long Lost

by secretlyasummers



Category: DCU (Comics), Green Lantern (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2019-11-05 17:27:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17923196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretlyasummers/pseuds/secretlyasummers
Summary: Framed for crimes she didn't commit, Carol Ferris - the Star Sapphire - is on the run, searching for answers . . .





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> While it's not at all necessary, I think it might be helpful to read Green Lantern 16, Action Comics 601, and Extreme Justice 10 and 11 to best understand the continuity I'm using. Please feel free to comment!

A fighter jet raced across the sky, screaming as it went faster and faster, all but cutting a ragged tear as it smashed through the sound barrier. It turned in a tight circle pressed down upon by g-forces that drove its pilot to the bleeding edge of unconsciousness. It recovered, still, and the pilot took it in a series of whirling loops and turns, roaring over the heads of the watching crowds. The pilot leaned on the stick, turning it over in a semi-circle, looking over the onlookers and flashing a winning, fearless smile. In a flash, it was gone, and the plane leapt up, climbing quickly till it was just the smallest flicker in the sky. The seconds became minutes, and the views on the projected screens that the onlooking crowd could see from the plane’s onboard cameras transformed from blue skies and white clouds, to the black void of space and a field of stars. It hovered, the pilot easing back on the stick, and then dived down, breaking Mach 3 in the descent. The plane pulled up, the sonic boom rocketing behind it as it crossed over the salt flat that the aerial demonstration was held on.

“Showboating son of a bitch,” Carol Ferris swore, but she couldn’t stop the broad grin that spread across her face, pushing her ink-black hair out of her eyes. She was otherwise the very appearance of professionalism, in a black suit and pencil skirt that was nearly as expensive as the plane itself. Hal may have been one to pay little or no attention to the rules, or to the designated design path, but damn if he didn’t make Ferris’ newest plane look pretty damn good in front of all the brass that was watching. “Tell Jordan to follow the designated flight path,” she told one of the technicians, “or he’s is going to have hell to pay once he lands.” The words weren’t quite serious, though. The Ferris Aircraft XF-38 was a good enough product of her and her father’s company that it would have been an easy sell, even if it had someone less brilliant then Hal behind the stick.

Carol glanced back towards the Ferris hangars, where two more XF-38 prototypes were sitting. This was the product of almost a decade of focused research and development, something that the very future of the company was riding on. It was critical that they, both Carol and her engineers, and Tom Kalamaku and his mechanics, and Hal Jordan, up there in the pilot’s seat of that flying rocket, got this plane sold.

“Boss! Miss Ferris!” One of the technicians shouted, alarmed, towards Carol. “We’ve got a positive radar contact, inbound towards us. Mach 8, and, and only speeding up.

“Fuck,” Carol swore, under her breath. The salt flats were supposed to be clear, and they had made sure that no one else had filed flight plans in the area. The area had to be empty. Especially since they had to have Hal land and rearm before they could start live weapons testing. They could still, maybe, if—

“No, sorry – two contacts.” The technician interrupted Carol again. “Small, two, smaller then anything we’ve got. Maybe something by Wayne, or Lexcorp?”

“Give me the radio.” She grabbed the receiver from the tech. “Hal! Hal, copy. This is Carol.”

_“What’s up, babe?”_

“Miss Ferris to you, Hal. We’ve got positive contact on two unidentified objects, moving at high speed. I need you to bring the plane in for an early landing. Nothing fancy, nothing special. Just land.”

_“Copy, Carol._

“And not a scratch on—”

_“Sapphire, I’ve got visual contact! It’s—”_

The radio cut out, and Carol watched on the monitors as Hal pulled his chute, shooting out of the plane as the rockets of the ejector seat pushed him clear. A green light – one of the bogeys – slice through the XF-38 like a hot knife through butter, destroying it instantaneously. The light continued its path, catching Hal in a bubble of coherent construct-light.

“Lanterns.” Carol said it like a curse. It wasn’t exactly a secret how deeply Ferris Aircraft, and Coast City in general, was mixed up with the Green Lantern’s world, no matter which Green Lantern or how many Green Lanterns – or the Star Sapphire or the Predator or even a couple different Justice Leagues - it was. “Everyone!” She shouted to the crowds, both of Ferris Aircraft employees and of watching military and industry people. “Get to cover, to the hangers! I’ll—”

Carol paused. What _could_ she do? If Hal and his ring weren’t enough, then, well, what could they do? The armaments for the other two XF-38s weren’t loaded, even if they had been able to do anything, and her old Justice League communication frequencies were abandoned, by now. The only thing that she had that might be able to do anything was in a locked drawer in her office, on the other side of the hangar.

Still, though . . . it was the only way at this point.

The second light, the one that hadn’t taken after Hal and the plane, arced over the landing strip, and the fleeing crowd of onlookers. It slowed, and the bright aura – which mere seconds ago had been all but blinding – dimmed to a point where it was only like the moon, rather then the sun. Carol recognized the alien ensconced in the green aura from the last time the Corps fought on Earth – the four armed Green Lantern Salaak.

Carol didn’t hang around to see what he was up to.

The other light – the other Lantern, Carol supposed – cut her off, placing herself on the other side of Salaak, with Carol caught between the two of them. His aura shrank as well, becoming visible as the porcine trainer of the Corps. Kilowog. The bubble radiating from his power ring still held Hal captive, who himself was still wearing his flight suit and helmet.

The two raised their hands, pointing their power rings at Carol, and Carol alone. In perfect English, translated by the advanced technology of the Guardians of the Universe, Salaak announced the following:

“Carol Ferris of Earth, Sector 2814. You are under arrest for _multiple_ counts of murder across the galaxy. Do not resist, or further force will be imposed. You will be tried fairly and justly before the Guardians of the Universe on planet Oa.”

Carol’s mid reeled and raced. _Murder?_ Across the galaxy? Carol hadn’t left Coast City, let alone the planet, in months. And murder? Sure, there are some people – in fact, one explicitly named ‘Jordan’ – that Carol might _want_ to kill, but she certainly hadn’t actually done it. If the Lanterns were after her, if some bald shmuck with blue skin and some creepy monk robe thought that she was a killer, then something serious was going on. And Carol knew enough of the Guardians of the Universe that she didn’t intend to let them decide her fate.

“Screw it.” The crowds had all but cleared, scattered or found cover in the Ferris Aircraft hangar. She was alone.

“Salaak! Kilowog!” Hal shouted at the two other Green Lanterns. “What the hell are you two doing? Carol didn’t kill anyone, or whatever it is you’re shouting about.

“We’ve got our orders, poozer.” Kilowog’s voice was firm. “The evidence was unmistakable. The reason Salaak and I are here is to stop _you_ from doing something stupid.”

“Like what?”

“Like—"

“Hal!” Carol shouted towards her boyfriend. “The crowds are clear, there’s no one here. No witnesses. Do your thing!”

A half-smile crossed Jordan’s face, and he ignited his own power ring, his flight suit burning away as it was replaced with his Green Lantern uniform. “Stupid question. Like this, I guess. Back off, buddy.”

His ring burned brightly, projecting pulses of force towards Kilowog’s construct bubble that held him captive. It burned hotter, stronger, till finally Kilowog’s bubble just popped. Hal rushed him, trying to hit Kilowog before the other Green Lantern could respond. But a power ring works at the speed of thought, and Kilowog thought fast. He returned fire with an audible _POOM_ , the burst of will-light refracting and splintering against a prism construct that Hal willed to life.

“Jordan, stop!” Salaak turned, firing beams of light from each of his four hands, towards the ducking and weaving Hal. “You are defying the lawful authority of your superiors in the Corps!”

Carol didn’t stop to watch the fight. She ran, towards the office building, while Hal and the two other Green Lanterns dueled in the air above her. Above her, detonations of green energy and burning light impacted and bounced off each other, despite the shouted proclamations and declarations of the aerial combatants.

Hal’s whirling buzzsaws shattered against the insectoid spider-creatures that Salaak constructed from his own ring, while he was battered back by monumental blasts from Kilowog. Jordan summoned a pair of green fighter jets, dropping smoke as a distraction, buying some space to return fire on his own, pinpoint blasts that his foes weaved through, closing and whirling in a high-speed aerial dogfight.

Carol passed the hangar at a run, reaching the door to the administrative building, an austere three-story building from which she ran most of Ferris Aircraft’s operations in the area on a normal day. But it wasn’t a normal day, and she wasn’t looking for the Ferris phone directory.

“Jordan!” Salaak faced the other lantern, straight on. “We didn’t want to do this. But the Guardians expected this, too. They gave us an override.”

“Bullsh—”

“Lantern 2814.1,” Salaak intoned gravely. “Deactivate ring, Guardian authorization level Yessop Apsa Rami.”

Hal’s ring flickered off, and Green Lantern fell like a stone, straight into a waiting construct net of Kilowog’s.

Carol pushed the door open, and hit the stairs at the run. After all this Lantern _bullshit_ , Carol had finally gotten something of her own to contribute to it. When she was younger, the sister race of the Guardians of the Universe, the women known as the Zamarons, had gone searching for a new queen after the death of their last one. They needed women who looked identical to their old queen, and Carol – by chance, rather then due to any special connection because of her on-again off-again romance with Hal Jordan – fit that category to a tee. Dubbed “the Star Sapphire,” Carol was driven by the Zamarons to be an occasional foe to Hal as the Green Lantern. Possessed by the Zamarons, she was an a-list supervillain all on her own, if not of her own volition. Green Lantern, the Flash, Superman – she fought, and she often beat them all. The Star Sapphire power even, when combined with the power of the emotional entity of the violet light of love, gave birth to a manifestation of her “masculine” impulses, in a form called the Predator. It was years later, after many, many more battles, that she was finally freed of her connection to that force.

But years after even that? After the Hal’s fall and possession by the malevolent entity known as Parallax, with the destruction and reconstruction of the Green Lantern Corps, and the war with the Sinestro Corps, and the Red and Orange Lanterns, the Zamarons had decided to build a corps of their own, patterned after the Star Sapphires. Carol had been the first of that Corps, the first to be granted a power ring.

And that ring? That ring she still had.

Carol took the stairs three at a time, sprinting as fast as she could, to her penthouse office. She could see the scanning beams of the two Green Lanterns as they searched for her, and through the windows the blinding glow of their auras as they landed, the two heading towards the ground floor in order to chase up the stairs after her. She passed the first-floor landing, passing her own employees searching for cover and shelter from the metahuman conflagration outside. On the second floor, she thought to sound the fire alarm, to get the staff out of the office before they became unintentional casualties in the fight that was bound to break out. And then the third floor, with its single office, and it’s wide open the windows facing onto the airfield, so she could watch the latest generation of Ferris planes take off and land. She glanced back, and saw the green light of the two Lanterns ascending after her.

Carol kicked open the door to her office, and jumped over the desk, the light of the two Lanterns getting brighter and brighter. She rifled through her desk drawers, one at a time, until – stuck between a requisition form for some spare parts and some letters from her father, Mister Ferris – she found the sapphire ring.

“Heh. Now you’re going to get into it.” She began to recite the oath, lowering the ring onto her hand. _“For hearts long lost and full of fright, for those—”_

A burst of green light shot out, and plucked the ring from her hand. “Listen, frail. We can’t let you put that piece of thing on.” Kilowog grabbed the ring, and clutched it tightly. “No power in that ring, nowhere else to go, nowhere else to run.”

Salaak stepped into the room after him. “Running is only more evidence of guilt, Ms. Ferris. The meaning that Lantern Jordan ascribes to you gives you some leeway, but that leeway is rapidly running out. Lantern Jordan’s . . .  impropriety, we can set aside, but any further resistance and we’ll treat you like a hostile suspect.”

Carol’s hand searched through the desk drawer as quietly and innocuously as she could, while she faced down the Green Lantern pair. “I didn’t kill anyone. I’ve been on Earth the entire time. I’ve been around Hal, most of the time, even!”

“Pal, I’ve seen the evidence.” Kilowog’s voice was low and rough. “That’s one rough story for me to believe, and I’ve been around the galaxy, seen a whole lot of real strange things. You want me to believe you, raise your hands, and we’ll find out the truth on Oa. From a Sciencell.” Emerald strings and beams of light coalesced around his fist as Kilowog pointed his ring at Carol, charging it as he prepared to fire.

Carol closed her hand around the other weapon she had with her. “Hal was mind-controlled or turned evil or replaced enough that I had to have some sort of plan.” She grabbed a pistol from the desk drawer and rolled, firing, a close placed grouping of three bullets at each of the two Green Lanterns. And this gun – one evening she had oh-so-painstakingly painted the bullets yellow. The shots were well-aimed, the bullets on path . . . and all six bounced off the Green Lanterns harmlessly.

Salaak’s face was alien enough that emotions were by no means easy to decipher, but Carol could have sworn he thought it was funny. “Our rings have long since been treated to be proof to the yellow impurity. As such, Ms. Ferris, you’re under arrest.”

A burst of green, and everything went black for Carol.

 Carol woke up in a box. A green cube, maybe three meters on every side, featureless, bar a few buttons inset in the wall, labeled with Oan glyphs – a toilet, a bed. At the front, the green wall thinned to translucency, giving a view out towards the interior of a vast hall, filled with other cells, just the same as this one. These were the Oan sciencells, the prisons of the Green Lantern Corps. They were filled, for the most part, with criminals of the worst, most vile sort, both from Earth and from elsewhere. Hector Hammond. Evil Star. Doctor Polaris. Romat-Ru. The Shark. Even Sinestro himself.

And now, apparently, Carol Ferris. She was furious, angry. The Corps, they believed that she was guilty of some murders she didn’t even know about, and obviously hadn’t committed. But they had to believe it, and they were clearly convinced, deeply convinced that she had killed whomever it as that they thought she killed. With the exception of Guy Gardner, the Green Lanterns weren’t stupid. This evidence, whatever it was, however they had gotten it, must be convincing. “Fool a billion-year-old police corps run by literal immortals” convincing.

So, Carol mused over her options. She could sit, and wait, or she could somehow break free, fly by the seat of her pants to escape a planet full of superpowered space cops, weaponless, steal a spaceship, and make her way back to Earth. The question that leapt to her mind first was the obvious one.

“What would Hal Jordan do?”

Hal Jordan would have done the seat of his pants daredevil stuff. But Carol wasn’t Hal. The decision wasn’t hard. Oh, she’d get out of here, whenever and however possible. But she needed information, planning, to figure out what the hell was happening and how the hell to _fix it_. Hal obviously wasn’t going to come to her rescue, that was clear. And to hell with him, too! Carol didn’t need that particular Green Lantern to fix _everything_.

Carol saw the glimmering, glowing auras of two Green Lanterns flying down, towards the cell that she was shut up in. Inmates across the prison shouted at the two lanterns, in dozens of different alien languages, some translated, others not, but the two ignored them. The emerald light coruscated as they lowered themselves deeper into the pit, till, at a distance, Carol could make out exactly which two of the Corpsmen they were; the ursine, bear-like warden of the Sciencells of Oa – whose name Carol couldn’t quite recall – and one of the other human GLs. It was John Stewart, she could tell. The African-American former Marine who had taken over after Hal and Guy Gardner as the Earth’s Lantern.

Not good news, Carol thought. She had no particular ill-will or anything toward John – he was a good man, he did his job well, and, to be honest, there’s only so much you can dislike any person who was a member of the Justice League of America. But Carol – back in the bad days, when the malevolent side of the Star Sapphire, as influenced and controlled by the Predator entity, had control – killed John’s wife, his fellow Green Lantern Katma Tui.

They alighted in front of her cell, a level extending to serve as a shelf to stand on. Stewart turned to his fellow lantern – the bear-like one – and gestured him off.

“Voz, I’ve got this.” The other lantern flew off with a nod, and John leveled his gaze at her. “Carol . . . how could you do this?”

“Do what, John? I still don’t know what, exactly, I’m in prison for. Other than murder, but no one has told me who I murdered, or when, or how.”

John’s lip curled, and he willed his ring to pulse two files to life, hanging in the air. “Pandina. Lartnec. On both of those worlds, there were two, gruesome murders. Two women, vaporized to such a degree where barely even a trace remains. And your DNA is all over time crime scene, your face, caught by all the security cameras. We even found your fingerprints on the scene, Carol. Fingerprints. This is an open and shut case. Two women, viciously killed. We . . . hell, I probably should.”

Carol shook her head, angrily, frustrated. “I _didn’t do it_ , John. I don’t even know who these people who. Hell, I don’t even know what these two worlds are, for god’s sake! I probably couldn’t get there if my life depended on it. Especially since at the moment it appears that it actually does.”

“I know you claim that. I can’t say I like you, Carol.” Stewart paused, glancing at his power ring for a moment. “But I like Hal and Kyle enough that you’re getting the benefit of the doubt, and a fair trial. For their sake, if not yours.”

“And where are Kyle Rayner and Hal Jordan in all this, Stewart?” Carol pointed a finger at him, accusatorily. “My oh-so-illustrious exes were the Corps Leader and the ‘Torchbearer,’ don’t they have some pull, here?”

“The Guardians have reassigned Kyle and Hal, with a dozen other Lanterns, to Sector 1416. They’re on diplomatic duty with the Zamarons, trying to make sure that _your_ murders—”

“Alleged murders!”

“That your murders don’t start another war between the Corps and the Star Sapphires. And it’s not a sure thing, either, at this point.”

Carol sat down in the cell. “So you’ve got a bunch of evidence that doesn’t line up with the facts, and all the people who are leaping to convict me happen to be hanging around Oa, while all of my friends and loved ones have been sent off to the backwaters of the galaxy. That’s real convenient. Suspiciously convenient, some could say. For that matter, that _I_ would say.”

“Or a woman who was a villain before is acting like a villain again, and now we’ve got to deal the more then unfortunate political implications of that.” John doused his ring, and hovered again, getting ready to fly off. “Your lawyer will be here tomorrow, Ferris. Don’t get too comfortable.”

With that John flew off, without looking back even once. Carol looked around at the bare Sciencell, a featureless green cube.

“Comfortable. Right. Bullshit.”

An hour passed, and then another. Carol nearly dozed off. There was nothing to do, nowhere to go, so all she did was sit. Then, finally, she was awakened by another brilliant flash of green light, moving faster then John Stewart had, in his own little visit. Like a rocket.

“Carol! Come on, up and at ‘em.” The light resolved into a perky young woman, with orange skin and bright blonde hair, cut in a close-cropped bob. She had replaced the standard uniform look of the Green Lanterns with a custom uniform, of her own design – a white minidress with a green skirt, and a green choker with the lantern insignia. Arisia Rrab. Another member of the proud “Hal Jordan’s exes” club.

“Arisia?” Carol leapt to her feet. “What are you doing here? Wouldn’t John, or the warden, be—”

“Sorry, right.” Arisia raised her power ring. “Ring, place Sciencell Alpha Zed-Bravo-Terce-Victor in diagnostic mode. Disable local surveillance and visual monitoring systems. Now, Carol, stand back.”

“Wait!” Carol stepped back, but shook her head, confused. “I—”

_BOOM!_

A blast of light from Arisia’s ring, and the cell door shattered. “Come on, Carol. We’re busting out of here.”

“But—”

“No buts!” Arisia smiled, cockily. “I know what John is saying. But I also heard what you said, and I know what Hal said, and I know what Hal said you said. And I know who I believe. If you two said that you didn’t do it, then you didn’t do it.”

Carol let out a sigh of relief. “Thank god. Finally, finally someone listens to me. I’m glad to see that someone shred of common sense around here.” Even, she thought, if the only one on my side is the ditzy ingenue of the space cops. Not the best odds. “Do we have a plan, maybe? Weapons, allies, a ship? I have to get out of here, Arisia. I have to clear my name, from whatever or whomever is framing me.”

“Better.” Arisia traced a circle with her power ring, and retrieved something from a dimensional portal. “Your power ring, the Sapphire ring, it’s still deep in lockup, behind some of the best security on the planet, while the Corps negotiates with the Zamarons to get it shutdown. But I was able to get this checked out of security suuuper easily.”

She tossed a gem through the air, the light hitting it as it glimmered, before neatly landing in Carol’s hand.

“The original source of the Star Sapphire powers,” Arisia said. “One of the five Zamaron Star Sapphire gems.”

Carol held it, and then extended a bit of her mind towards it . . . and felt it extend a feeler back. “Just like old times, I guess.”

She felt the energy wash over her, the mystic nature of the Emotional Spectrum filling her with power. Her torn businesswomen’s suit was replaced by the uniform she had worn back in the early days, fighting with Hal. Thigh-high pink boots, and a pink leotard and opera gloves, with a wide white belt bearing the Star Sapphire insignia. A high white collar extended from near her neck, and a pink mask covered her features. It was topped by a tiara, on which the Sapphire gem itself was mounted.

“How does it feel?”

Carol smiled, as an aura of crackling pink energy coalesced around her. “Better then ever. C’mon. Let’s go set this right.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

The Sciencells’ residents hooted and jeered as the pink and purple energy of the Star Sapphire surrounded Carol, and coalesced into the uniform of the Star Sapphire itself, the gem glittering from the tiara on her brow. A pink aura sheathed her, glowing and burning with power, protecting her from all but the most egregious harm. She stepped forward, out of the Sciencell, hovering in the air, an elegant step from ground to empty space. With a half-turn, she pointed her hand at the cell, and then let out a burst of violet power, smashing the empty Sciencell to bits.

“Huh.” Carol turned back, a smile on her lips. “Now _that_ felt good.”

Arisia waited, hand on her hip, the emerald power ring glowing from her hand, her own green aura covering the white and green minidress that served for her Corps uniform.

“Are you, like, finished with that whole display, Carol?” She gestured towards the exit to the Sciencells, levels and levels above them, where green lights began to cluster. “The Corps are going to be alerted in not too long, especially if we stick around here. I’m, like, fine with getting in a firefight, but better to avoid it if we can.”

“Right.” Carol focused on the Sapphire, running through the functions of it, one by one. It was like an old friend returning to her, after all this time. Flight, both in atmosphere and through deep space. Energy blasts. Constructs, of coherent violet light. Translation matrixes and communications functions. There were more . . . malevolent functions, too, implanted by the Zamarons to ensure that their agents would obey them. Implanted personalities, memory erasing functionalities, the very reasons why the Sapphire gems had been phased out for power rings in the first place.

Carol was sure to take a moment to disable those, first.

“You ready now?” Arisia was impatient, watching the jeering prisoners yell at them. “I can’t, uh –“ she tugged her skirt down, slightly, “- can’t say I love it, waiting around.”

 “Now.” The sapphire energy gathered, burning bright, and in a snap, Carol rocketed up, Arisia not far behind her. The prisoners – the refuse of galaxies, gathered by the greatest lawmen of the universe – yelled and shouted at the two women, who kept on climbing, ring and gem exuding power.

“We’re fourteen miles down, and rising!” Arisia said, through the ring’s communication network. “You were imprisoned near the bottom, in high-security. There’s a lot of sciencells to pass, before we reach the exits, and can get to space.”

“And alarms?” Carol accelerated, moving up. “It’s not like I don’t want to sock John Stewart in the face, but it’s best we don’t get too bogged down, I’d bet.”

“I, like, think that I’ve managed to turn all that stuff off.”

The pair passed through a web of brilliant green lights, and alarms started blaring. In the far distance, the hovering green lights stopped, and turned towards the two women.

“Right, so, maybe I missed a few alarms.”

Carol glared. “You think!?”

The two heroines accelerated even more, rising as fast as they could, trying to make a break for the single exit at the top of the Sciencells. They were fast, going as fast as they could without harming the convicts locked in the Sciencells all around them, but not fast enough. Three Green Lanterns – the plant-based Green Lantern Medphyll, the organic-rock Green Lantern, Brik, and the robotic Stel, stood guard, closing the exit to the Sciencells and reinforcing them with a web of constructs, in the forms of gates, spikes, turrets and cannons. They sent a hail of green laserfire down the empty column of cells, a practical rain of energy bolts forged of pure will.

Carol and Arisia dodged and weaved, doing their best to avoid the beams that were shooting towards them, while ring-forged shields of purple and green light deflected off what few bolts did make contact.

“Arisia,” Carol said to the young woman, “freeing me and all was nice, but are you prepared to actually fight your teammates there?”

Arisia winced, as a burst of green light bounced off her own shields. “They certainly didn’t have a problem shooting at me!”

“That’s what I like to hear.” Carol’s expression lost its amusement. “Okay, get in close, and hit them hard.” She paused, pushing the power of the Zamaron gem into a construct shield, bouncing a blast of light from the Green Lanterns opposing them into the wall. “We don’t need to win; we just need to get out of here intact.”

“Maybe _you_ don’t need to win.” Arisia’s power ring glimmered with power as she charged a shot. “I’d certainly prefer it.”

In a flash, they were among the three Green Lanterns, Arisia and Carol fighting and spinning and blasting beams of light. Brik created a construct of some sort of monstrous creature from her world, six clawed arms gashing and smashing. Carol slipped under, firing burst after burst of purple light from her hands, and, as the monstrous creature leapt forwards she grabbed the its mouth and pulled, ripping it in two. Another blast of light sent the Green Lantern – Brik – reeling, and Arisia took advantage, closing to deliver a knockout punch in a construct fist. By then, the other two Green Lanterns were getting in to the fray as well, constructs of vines and roots binding Arisia’s arms, while the robotic Stel sent pinpoint precise bursts of green light at Carol, each aimed at pressure points and weak spots in her sapphire shielding.

“Arisia!” Carol did her best to evade the robot Green Lantern’s blasts, each of which pinged and chipped off her shields, doing more and more damage with each blast. “On my mark, castle?”

“What?!” Arisia was struggling, putting her will-via-the-ring into freeing herself, ineffectually, from the constricting vines.

“Oh, sorry, cultural reference. Switch opponents!”

“Gotcha!” Carol dashed forwards, just as Arisia channeled a herculean amount of will into the power ring. Stel’s blasts, fired at Carol, impacted with the will-construct vines of the Green Lantern Medphyll, freeing Arisia, who returned fire with a minutely thin, but incredibly precise beam of willpower, slicing through one of Stel’s power-regulators. Star Sapphire’s went with the blunt approach, raising both her hands to unleash a coherent, immense blast of violet light.

Medphyll’s shield, summoned from the plant’s own power ring, held for a single second, then another. And then it splintered, the pure power of the Zamaron ring knocking him out in a blast. The three Green Lanterns plummeted to the ground, their power rings catching them before they hit the distant bottom.

“That was . . . easy.” Carol was surprised, and extended out her senses through the Zamaron gem, for more incoming Lanterns. “That shouldn’t have gone this way. I never beat Hal that easily, back in the day.”

“Right?” Arisia leaned, bending over and looking at the falling Lanterns. “Those three were good fighters, and are good lanterns. We only won this quickly cause we hit them really fast, and I don’t think they wanted to hurt us, either.”

“And here I was thinking I’m just naturally that good.”

“ _I’m_ good, Carol. You’re lucky.”

Carol snorted, and rolled her eyes. “Should we . . .”

Arisia bounced up, her ring glowing with power. “Yeah, we’ve got to go. Stewart’s going to be sending more GLs any minute. If he doesn’t have Salakk just turn off my ring in the first place.”

Carol raised her hand, as it coruscated with glimmering pink power. With a burst, the doors to the Sciencells cut open, opening the deep prison to open sky and space above that. “Follow me.”

She arced high in to the air, Arisia following, leaving behind the ancient towers and cityscapes, let alone the glittering swarms of Green Lanterns below.  The two exited the planet at high speeds, hitting deep space merely seconds later. They paused, at the edge of the system, Arisia pinging Carol’s gem with her power ring.

“Hey, Carol? You have a destination in mind for this prison break, or are we just going to aimlessly shoot through space?”

“I’ve got . . . maybe half of an idea?”

Arisia gave her a look. “What does that actually mean?”

“When Salakk and Kilowog were arresting me, and when Stewart was, ah, interrogating me, about these murders they think I committed, he mentioned two planets, the places where the murders were committed. Pandina and Lartnec.”

“I’ve heard of the first one,” Arisia said. “It’s a city-world, on the outskirts of Thanagarian space. Hereditary monarchy, I think? It’s not my sector.”

“Right.” Carol focused on the Sapphire gem, accessing its internal databases, and pulling up the navigational data to the planet. “So, I figure we head to that world, do some investigating of our own. Maybe we can get to the bottom of this ourselves? Figure out who _actually_ did the murders.”

“So, like, do some Batman stuff?” Arisia paused, pulling up navigation

“It’s better then just sitting on my ass in Stewart’s prison cell, sure.”

“That doesn’t seem like a really tall bar.”

The two took a second to find their bearings, calibrating their destinations, and letting the power build in their power ring and Sapphire gem, respectively. And then . . . with a burst, they leapt forwards, faster than light, crossing light-years in seconds, heading towards the distant world, Pandina.

Carol glanced, across, at the other woman, her tight white minidress highlighted by the glowing green aura of her power ring. Arisia had a determined expression on her face, both of her hands pointed straight forwards, except for the occasional second where she’d reach back, brushing her hair out of eyes.

“Hey, Arisia?” Carol was slightly more tentative, then usual. “This isn’t . . . strange, or something, for you?”

“What, hanging out with the woman that the guy I dated the longest not only dated before me, but, like, kind of left me for?” Arisia rolled her eyes. “No, that’s not weird at all. Next, I’m, like, going to chat boys with the Guardians of the Universe, an equally fun and entertaining activity!”

“Okay, okay! I get it. Awkward.” Carol paused a second. “Okay.” She paused again. “Why did you come to break me out, then? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I certainly appreciate you breaking me out of jail, I don’t exactly want to be framed for a crime I didn’t commit, but, well . . . I didn’t exactly expect it.”

“I, uh, like, told you, right?” Arisia shrugged. “I heard what John said, and I heard what you and Hal said, and I believe you two.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

There was a moment, a beat of silence

“I mean . . .”

Carol narrowed her eyes. “What?”

“If it wins bonus points with Hal it’s not a _bad_ thing, you know?”

“You broke me out of jail, fought a bunch of your fellow Green Lanterns, and are going half way across the galaxy with me to investigate a bunch of murders because . . . you want to impress our mutual ex? Seriously? Doesn’t that seem a little . . . excessive?”

“I wasn’t – I mean, uh . . .” Arisia trailed off.  She turned, mid-flight, looking at Carol, then looking back at the space in front of her. “I was being honest, before. I do trust Hal, and, well, I trust you, too. And there is something strange about this, whatever this is, and you’re certainly acting more innocent then most of the people that I’ve taken in, really.”

“So, you’re risking your life and your career on a gut feeling?”

“Well, like, basically, yeah.”

“Heh.” Carol chuckled, and after a second, Arisia joined in, laughing as well.

“Hey, at least dating Hal Jordan isn’t the dumbest decision that I’ve ever made!”

Carol smiled at the younger woman. “Hey, I can think of several things that Hal does right. You know the thing he does, when he—”

“Oh, yeah, I remember that.” Arisia closed her eyes, contentedly. “Very good, at a few very specific things. And it isn’t the Green Lantern Corps things.”

“It _almost_ makes up for all the . . . strangeness, that Green Lantern brought to me. And to my company. And to my city. And to me.”

Arisia snorted. “Please. We’re, like, talking about weird things? I used my power ring to artificially mature myself to look like an adult, became a fashion model, and lived in Southern California of all places. I was the Green Lantern of LA!”

“Oh, listen, I don’t disagree with you, being LA’s superheroine is a pretty low place to fall, I don’t disagree. But I’m pretty sure that I can top that.”

“I don’t believe—”

“I once got _myself_ pregnant.”

Arisia blinked.

“ _What?”_

“The evil Star Sapphire personality that the Zamarons used to control me got pregnant by the Predator, the human manifestation of my – to quote the Guardians – ‘masculine impulses,’ whatever that means, and eventually I made a deal with the devil to trade the baby in exchange for erasing the Star Sapphire personality.”

“Yeah, no, that’s impressive, sure,” Arisia said, “but I think I can top it.”

“Really?”

“Really!”

Carol beckoned, to signal Arisia that she should go on.

“You see, so, after the Green Lantern Corps  was shut down, for a while, I was helping Guy Gardner, who had turned into a alien super-weapon with evil gun hands—”

“ _Evil gun hands?”_

“Yeah, his hands turned into guns, and he had freaky alien tattoos, now don’t interrupt. So, like, I, like, was working with Gardner, doing some modeling and working at his bar, all this stuff, and then some bouncing, when some lame product of one of your dumb government’s super-soldier projects attacked, and tried to beat me to death.”

“And . . .”

“I mean, I had no power ring, he was a giant dude covered in, like, freaky alien metal goop. What do you think? He beat me into a coma. But everyone forgot that I was, like, y’know, not human, so they thought I was dead, buried me, and sort of forgot about me.”

Carol snorted. “As a human, that does sound like humans. You clearly got better, though.”

“Yeah, my comatose body was kidnapped by an army of suicidal alien robots, and they used me as a living battery.”

“Okay, I take it back, I think you do win.”

“I’ve got more stories, trust me.” Arisia shrugged. “I can, like, play the weird things that being a super-hero did to my life game all day long.”

At the same time, her power ring and Carol’s sapphire gem pinged.

“We’re here, so I’m going to have to cut your story short.”

Pandina was a city-world, the entire planet covered by one, immense metropolis, the towers stretching all the way into the atmosphere, to the very edge of space. The slums, too, stretched deep into the planet’s underbelly, an enormous warren of bars, hidey-holes, and other spots where the poor, and the criminal element, lurked. It was black and white. Glittering palaces and apartments where the rich and famous lived in abundant, extravagant luxury, at the tops of the spires, while the poor, in the lower levels, eked out their wages, day to day.

The two women arced down, hitting the atmosphere at a sharp angle, power ring and sapphire gem deflecting the heat from re-entry.

“I’ve got the crime scene files from the Green Lantern Corps’ Central Power Battery downloaded to my ring,” Arisia said.

“Good.” Carol narrowed her eyes, focusing. “Guide us in.”

Arisia and Carol flattened out, midway through the atmosphere, heading towards a tower that broke through the clouds, surrounded by a collection of smaller towers.

“Sapphire,” Carol said, talking to the gem that gave her her powers. “Access local info-nets. Identify that tower.”

“Working.” Carol waited, a second, while the gem wormed its way into the networks of Pandina. “Identified. Tower indicated is the royal palace of the former monarch of Pandina, Queen Remoni-Notra.”

“That’s our murder victim,” Arisia remarked. “The queen. Part of the reason that the Corps is, like, kicking such a fit is that the victim is so important. Even with there being a lot of planets in the universe, the death of the ruler of a planet is sort of a big deal.”

“Makes sense,” Carol said, off-handedly. “If it looks like the Corps can’t even protect that sort of people, then the planets will stop trusting the Corps.”

“Yeah. Smart.”

“I run a multi-billion-dollar company,” Carol snarked. “I like to think I have a tiny bit of intelligence.”

Arisia just rolled her eyes.

They alighted on a balcony, Arisia cutting the door open, into the interior of the tower. “They haven’t cleaned up the crime scene, yet,” she said. “I think they want to use it for the trial.”

“That’s . . . grim. Convenient, but grim.”

Arisia shrugged. “Different worlds, different styles. Come on. This way.”

They went down a long hallway, richly decorated with artwork and embellishments in a variety of elaborate, exotic metals. Torches, with burning blue flames, lit the hallway, with a shadowy, flickering blue light. The hallway ended in a set of double doors, chained closed, decorated with carvings of warrior-kings and cavorting creatures.

“You want the honors?”

Carol raised her hand, wordlessly, and unleashed a burning blast of purple light, cutting through the chains. The two women each pushed on one of the doors, hurling then open. The inside was a throne room, long, with large, twisted columns in two rows, seven on each side. A throne, obviously, sat on one end, an enormous chair made out of some alloy, plated in gold. It was clear, too, that the room had once been filled with furniture and decorations, but that was long gone. Instead, it was filled with wreckage, pock-marked with burn-scars and scarring from energy blasts, and craters in the walls, probably where super-strong fists made contact.

In the center of the room was a holographic outline of a body, marked like the chalk outline police would use on Earth. And, inside, a holographic image of a dead body.

Arisia moved around, scanning the throne room with her ring, but Carol made a bee-line towards the body. She stepped back, shocked. “Oh my god.”

“What?” Arisia turned, her ring flashing a brilliant green. “What is it, Carol?”

“Look.” Carol pointed, towards the hologram of the body. “It’s . . . it’s me.”

She was right. Sure, the woman displayed in the image had a large burn on her chest, where the energy burst that killed her had hit, and was wearing a dress covered in fine metalwork and jewelry, with a plunging neckline. But, aside from the injuries, and the clothing, the woman was an exact copy of Carol Ferris. The same black hair, falling down past her shoulders, the same piercing blue eyes, the same ruby-red lips. It wasn’t just some uncanny similarity, some vague closeness that you could only see in the right light. They were _identical_.

“Carol . . .” Arisia trailed off, unsure. “What is going on here? Why are . . . you . . . lying there?”

“I don’t . . .” Carol didn’t really know what exactly had happened. She had a theory, sure, but . . . well, it’s hard to underestimate the impact that seeing an image of your own corpse has. It was . . . disconcerting, to say the least. But . . . the Green Lanterns, they hadn’t thought that Carol was the one who had been who had been murdered, they thought that she was the one off doing the killing. There had to be more, more then just an uncanny similarity between herself and this victim. Then, a flash of inspiration struck.

“Arisia, you have the crime scene records, right? Run through them for me. Did the Corps – did they scan for ring energy? Not just GL, across the whole spectrum.”

Arisia nodded. “Of course they did. They didn’t find anything, except for the background energy from their own power rings.”

“Right.” Carol knelt by the body, looking closely. She thought she had an idea, now that she was thinking about it. “So, they didn’t find any _ring_ energy, so they stopped looking for emotional spectrum energy whatsoever.”

“I mean, shouldn’t they have stopped? The power rings are the only thing that can channel—” Arisia stopped, suddenly. “Oh.”

“Right. My sapphire, the first-generation weapon of the Star Sapphires and the Zamarons. It uses emotional spectrum energy, same as your power ring, but it’s a different enough power signature that I’d bet the Corps wouldn’t be able to pick it up unless they were scanning for it specifically.”

“Carol, all this looks right now is _more_ evidence that you murdered this woman. And the ring . . .” Arisia looked up at her, worried. “Carol, it’s picking up human DNA. Your DNA.”

Carol raised a hand, placatingly. “I know, I know. Just bear with me. Anyway, you know, right, that there were only five of these sapphires made, right? The Zamarons forged them out of a special mineral found only on Maltus, the ancient homeworld of them and the Guardians, and used their science to allow them to empower the user.”

Arisia nodded. “Sure. Sure, I know this part. It’s in the GL Computer Database.”

“Right. But do they have the reasoning behind why the Zamarons chose who they did to get those five?”

“Uh . . .” Arisia’s eyes glowed green, as she called up the Corps’ computer database entries. “No, no they don’t. There’s some supposition and analysis, but they don’t know for sure.”

“Right.” Carol stood, her own sapphire gem glowing as she scanned the room. “The way that the Zamarons are ruled, they choose a mortal, the mortal who from throughout the galaxy best resembles their original ruler. And, when that mortal queen dies, they scan the galaxy to find a replacement. The sapphire gems, they’re given to the five candidates, to try and prove themselves.”

“Weird gladiatorial match between identical women from different species in order to prove themselves worthy of being a space queen of a race of immortals?” Arisia shrugged. “Sure, I’ve heard of stranger things.”

“Really? Where have—” Carol cut herself off. “Not important. But I’d bet if you scanned for the energy of the Sapphire, the Sapphire I have, you’d detect plenty of it.”

“Ring,” Arisia said. “You heard the lady. Scan for first generation Zamaron energy signatures.” She turned back to Carol. “But If I’m scanning for that what are you trying to do?”

“I want to figure out who this person actually is.” Carol picked up a sheaf of papers, using her gem to translate them, going through them one by one. I know the other Star Sapphires, the original ones. There was me, of course. One’s dead, an old enemy of the first Flash.”

“The one with the dumb hat?”                                                        

She nodded. “That’s the one. Then, there was this stewardess, for Ferris Airlines. I think the Spectre killed her, but she got better, eventually. And two aliens, Dela Pharon and Miri Riam. But this woman – Queen Remoni-Notra – I don’t recognize her name.””

Arisia opened a door, inset in the wall. “Would a stewardess have some sort of uniform with the Ferris logo on it?”

“Yes?”

“Then I think I can tell you who this woman is.” Arisia tossed out a flight attendant’s costume. “’Debbie Darnell,’ it says on the name tag.”

Carol snorted. “Alien queen pretending to be a stewardess. Huh.”

“And the ring is picking up the energy you expected, too. I think you’re right.” Arisia’s eyes glowed green, as the ring fed her information. “Someone attacked Remoni-Notra, she defended herself with the sapphire gem, and no matter how well she fought, she lost. Someone beat her to death, and either destroyed or took the sapphire.”

“And . . . and the other world, Lartnec.” Carol’s expression was grave. “I’d bet you a lot of money that if you look in your power ring, there, and cross-reference--"

“. . . yeah. Riam. That was her homeworld.” Arisia turned to Carol. “So, someone is killing Star Sapphires. Someone who is, genetically . . . you.”

“And if those two are dead, as is the first Star Sapphire, and I’m right here . . .” Carol spun, her aura flaring up again, coruscating with power. “Dela Pharon! We have to find her, now! Whomever it is that’s killing people, they’ll be going after her next!”

“Carol—”

“Now!”

The two exited the atmosphere, burning green and pink, hitting faster then light in less then a minute. They had a ticking clock, with a life on the line.


	3. Chapter 3

“Carol!” Arisia’s ring burned a brilliant emerald color as she chased the other woman, slicing high and sharp as she shot out of the atmosphere, the blue of the sky fading to the star-dotted black of space in mere seconds. “Carol, Carol, slow down! I don’t—”

“No time.” Carol had already gotten a far enough distance, broke ahead, that her voice was coming over Arisia’s power ring, by the communications. “You’d know – we’d know – if there had been another killing, and there hasn’t. And if we’re right that this killer – our mystery murderer – has been targeting the first five Star Sapphires, there’s only one left. Other then me. Every second we wait, every second we sit around chatting is a second where Dela Pharon, the other Sapphire, can be killed.”

She was a slowly receding violet star, in the distance, brighter and stronger than the light of the real suns, sure, but a receding sight nonetheless. Arisia poured her will into her ring, struggling to catch up to Carol, only slowly closing the distance between the two heroines. “It’s not – Carol, your Sapphire doesn’t have the power regulatory stuff that my power ring does. I just, like, can’t accelerate as fast as you can!”

“I don’t—”

“Carol!” Arisia was practically shouting into her ring. “You go up against our killer alone, you’re just going to end up like the last two Star Sapphires! Don’t be stupid, Ferris!”

“I—”

“Plus, Hal will kill me if I let you get offed.” Arisia was plaintive. “Slow down.”

Carol hesitated, waiting, then, slowly, the burning, brilliant star that surrounded her, emanating from the sapphire gem on her brow, dimmed and faded, shrinking away as she cut off her speed. She was still comfortably cruising at many times the speed of light, burning her way through space towards the other Sapphire, but slightly slower, only slightly. Arisia managed to get closer, evening the distance until they were flying side by side.

“This person – whomever they are – is a fighter. A good one,” Carol mused. “Not a lot of people like that in the galaxy that we don’t already know about.”

“Well, like, the big names are already accounted for, right?” Arisia shrugged her shoulders. “The Sinestro Corps got brought down, and Sinestro himself is fighting the Justice League. Mongul is in the Sciencells. So is Cyborg Superman. And, like, this is too small a deal for the New Gods to get involved with. I mean, I think so. They’re usually a little more . . .  world-endy, I think. Not so small scale.”

Carol was silent, for a second. “I think – and I know less of the space scene then you – that you’re right. Maybe . . . Lobo?”

“I think if it was Lobo we’d know about it. Not a subtle creepy space murderer bounty hunter.”

“Starro? That’s the space starfish’s name, right?”

Arisia paused for a moment, as they passed the telltale flare of a burning star. They were getting close. Xanador, Dela Pharon’s homeworld, was only a few sector’s over from Remoni-Notra’s homeworld. Practically spitting distance.

“That’s its name, but not it’s style. Think invasions, not, like, assassinations.”

Carol was only half paying attention to the conversation. She was concentrating on the burning violet energy, feeling it glow and rise, turning and twisting as it moved through her, changing direction at the slightest whim. It glimmered at her fingertips, burned at her forehead, waited for her mere thought to erupt in a burning, brilliant burst – powerful enough to kill, if she needed.

“Carol? Earth to Miss Ferris?”

“Oh, sorry. Right. So, if it isn’t the big names, then where does this leave us?”

Arisia’s eyes glowed green, for a second, as she called up the Corps’ records. “Either it could be someone we really don’t expect it to be – General Zod, or, I dunno, Brainiac – someone like those, or it’s a b-lister, a c-lister, really punching above their weight.”

“Or . . .”

“What?”

Carol glanced over her shoulder, looking the younger girl dead in the eye. “Or it’s someone new. Someone trying to make an impact, show off how good they are, how powerful they are, advancing some sort of new scheme.”

“Then it’s a real heavy hitter, Carol, this imaginary new person. And someone who is really good, too. No energy signatures, no DNA. All we found at Remoni-Notra’s place of death, at the crime scene, was her traces, her DNA and her energy signatures.”

“It doesn’t really matter, though.”

Arisia gave Carol a look. “What?”

“We’re probably about to find out. We’ve arrived.”

In a burst of brilliant green and purple, they slowed, rapidly, moving from many times the speed of light to a near-stop, hanging above the alien world. Xanador. It was mountainous, but nearly unpopulated, the people clinging to a few cities, built between towering crystalline peaks. There was a spaceport, sure, and a few minor industries, but nothing significant.

“Big planet,” Arisia said. “You got any ideas where Pharon is?”

“Scan with the rings, I guess?”

“Right!” Arisia slowed, for a moment, waiting for the ring to do its magic, and then turned to Carol. “Got a lock. Follow me!” Arisia broke out in a grin, bright and hopeful and fun, and for a second, Carol was reminded how young she really was, how, despite everything, despite the death of her friends, her own death, the girl still managed to hold onto that spark of . . . naiveite, I suppose, was too harsh, but perhaps optimism. The idea that it would all just . . . work out, positively. That everything would be all right, no matter what.

Carol, she wouldn’t pretend that she’d lost as much as many of her . . . well, she couldn’t quite say friends, really? Most of her friends had gone up with Coast City, burned away when Mongul and the Cyborg Superman burned it all from their starship. She had colleagues, from Ferris Air, from her brief time bankrolling the Justice League, and from the people she knew due to Hal’s other job: Lois, Iris, Mera, even the soldier, Trevor. But not friends. But after Coast City burned, after Hal first went insane, and then died saving everyone – and even before that, with what the Predator did to her, with what the Zamarons had done to her, with what every villain from Hector Hammond to Sinestro to random shitheads that Carol couldn’t even name any more had done to her – her innocence, the youthful belief that it would all just _work out_ . . . well, if she had even had ever had that innocence, it had long been burned out. She would be unlikely to admit it, if asked – and no one would, of course – but she admired that youthful enthusiasm, the hopefulness.

But then Arisia dived, heading down, towards the planet’s surface, and that brief moment of reverie was already gone.

Again, the rings flared, the energy burning around them as they hit the atmosphere, cutting quickly through, a sonic boom opening up behind them as they just flew, heedless of anything, following the path that Arisia’s ring traced towards the other source of Star Sapphire energy. They flashed past crystalline mountaintops, glittering with mineral formations, over blue oceans, interspersed with the odd spike of rock emerging from above the waves, in a single-minded determination to reach – to save – the woman they were there to rescue.

They saw the fight before they heard it, for a surprise. In the distance, blasts of light, a burning violet, the same shade as the sapphire blasts that Carol controlled, pulsing fast, a series of blasts in quick succession.

“Carol, do you—”

“I see it, Arisia. Get ready.”

As they got closer, as the fight came into sight, they saw it wasn’t one place where the blasts were coming from, but two – bursts of  Sapphire energy being fired by two people, not just by Dela Pharon.

“Well, at least we weren’t too late,” Arisia quipped.

“Only by seconds.” Carol was deadly serious. “Get ready. Protect Dela, get this murderer, stay safe.”

In an instant, they were there, among the two combatants, in the middle of the fight. Pharon, she was easy to recognize, in less then a second. She wore the same costume that Carol did, the pink and white leotard, with the pink tiara, the Star Sapphire gem burning hot and bright in the center of it, and the tall thigh-high boots. But the other one,  a woman, clearly, by her curves, shooting bolt after bolt of  violet energy at Pharon from her hands – that one was masked, a black bodysuit and featureless mask, plain  and quiet.

“Freeze!” Arisia leveled her ring, sparking with will. “Pursuant to the laws of the Guardians of the Universe and the Green Lantern Corps, you’re under arrest for the murders of—”

ZZRAP!

Arisia flew backwards, head over heels, her own shields sparking as a blast from the mystery woman’s hand threw her backwards.

“Arisia!” Carol caught her in a construct, and rushed forwards, unleashing bolt after bolt at the mystery woman, energy bursts that she neatly evaded, ducking under one and flying past the rest. The woman returned fire, a bolt aimed straight at Carol’s head, but splashed harmlessly off a shield conjured by Dela Pharon’s sapphire gem.

“Ferris, is that you? Finally stopped sitting around on your backwards planet?”

“Not a lot of thanks for someone who just rescued your ass!”

Dela and Carol went airborne, circling and firing at the mystery woman, who shielded herself with construct shields against the peppering of blasts.

“Rescued!?” Dela laughed. “Looking like I just saved _your_ life. I’ll take this idiot, just as I took you down, back in the day!”

“You think that—”

“Stop bickering already!” Arisia returned to the fray, an emerald island in a sea of violet. “Pharon, whoever this person is, they killed two other Star Sapphires. Each as powerful as you.” Arisia pointed, her ring glowing, and then fired, a razor thin burst of light that pierced the woman’s shields, and only missed the woman herself due to some last second dodges. “We’ve got to—”

“No.” The woman hovered into the air, violet energy coruscating, swirling, and twisting around her. “You will do _nothing_. Your fate is simple: death!”

“Huh.” Carol summoned her own power. “Real cheerful, pal.”

The four women sprung into action, energy flaring the hands of one, the sapphires of two, the power ring of the last. Arisia moved first, conjuring up snarling wrath-beasts from her homeworld from the emerald energy of Oa, and following it up with a burning green starfighter, blasting away with emerald missiles and bursts of coherent light. It was a formidable barrage, no question.

But the woman, this mystery killer, was too fast, too powerful. She unleashed a blast of violet light, which cut through the first of the wrath-beasts, dissipating it until mere motes of light were the only thing that remained. She rolled, too, avoiding the blasts from the construct starfighter, and leapt up, onto a rock, firing a burst of light that shattered the construct.

“My master sent me here for a mission, a simple one!” She put her hands together, and concentrated, forging sapphire fire into a three-pronged trident, wickedly sharp, covered with inlays and engravings. “My weapon, unholy, unsanctified for my cause and forged from my very essence for one purpose, and one purpose alone: my ultimate victory!” The woman leveled the trident at the Arisia, and fired.

The burst of light wasn’t the coherent beams of a sapphire, or the bright lines of light of a Green Lantern – this was fire, unleashed, uncontrolled, going only in a vague direction, not an aimed blast. But it was _powerful_. It ripped through the last of the constructs, the wrath-beast, simply vaporizing it in a mere moment. It shot forwards, heading towards the young Green Lantern.

“Carol!”

“I got it!”

Carol, Arisia, and Dela Pharon, threw their power into their ring and sapphires, forging a shield from green and pink light. The burning sapphire power splashed up against it, encroaching, burning, getting close to cutting through the shields.

“Put your mind into it, Ferris!”

“Shut . . . up, Dela!”

They held, for another moment longer, against the burning blast of sapphire fire coming from the mystery woman’s trident. Then the fire stopped, as suddenly as it began, and the woman was among them. She spun the weapon, bringing it down towards Carol, who parried, deflecting it off a construct sword, but the woman continued the swing, slicing the points of it towards Dela Pharon, who leaned out, avoiding it by a mere second, and then Arisia, who flamboyantly stopped the trident with a construct of the exact same elaborate weapon.

Arisia riposted, slicing down with the construct trident, but the woman parried, shattering the construct, and then fired a blast, knocking Arisia to the ground. They were moving fast, now, too fast for strategy or banter or anything beyond the simple rush of combat. Carol fired, another beam of sapphire, which the woman dodged, and Dela summoned a constructed, a heavy rock of coherent light, which the woman destroyed with a simple blast of light, from her hands.

“Shit,” Carol swore. “How are we losing this! There’s three of us, and one of her!”

“She’s better than us.”

“Quiet, Lantern.”

Dela Pharon leapt back into the fray, going hand to hand with the woman, while Arisia and Carol orbited, firing pinpoint beams of light, each of which was reflected off the spinning infernal trident, or deflected by the sapphire shields of the woman. Dela’s construct swords, forged from light, got close, time and again, mere seconds, mere inches, from slicing through the woman’s all-concealing black bodysuit, from cutting her tendons and bones straight through, but time and time and time again was deflected off, a back and forth flurry of blows in a practical symphony of deadly swordplay. Dela, finally dropped her swords, and fired, a burst of light from the sapphire light of love. The woman deflected enough of it didn’t hit her head on, and merely knocked her off balance, for almost a fraction of a second. But that second was all they needed.

Carol took Dela’s place, but didn’t go hand to hand, with construct weapons. She fought at range, taking advantage of the opportunity that Dela Pharon had bought her, beams of light shooting, aimed at ankles, elbows, wrists, trying to keep the mystery killer still off balance. A beam, from the tiara on Carol’s forehead, hit the palm of the woman’s hand, causing the trident, still glowing with burning sapphire fire, to fall to the ground.

“Finally.” A sly smile rose on Carol’s face. “Everyone, get the weapon! We’ve got to keep her clear of—”

“My powers are, uh,” the woman paused, for a second, “unabated!”

She fired back, at Carol, that same burning sapphire fire, unleashed through the air. But this time, Carol was airborne, easily able to dodge the powerful burst of light-energy. She spun, constructing from coherent light a curved slide, redirecting that burning fire and sending it back at the mystery woman.

“Arisia!” Carol kept on firing, the mystery woman dodging and weaving, getting airborne and getting closer and closer to Carol, even without the trident. “Arisia, I’ll get an opening, you get closer, hit her from behind!”

Arisia nodded, flying forwards, building armor around herself, forged and made from emerald light. Spiked gauntlets, pauldrons, helmet, even greaves, the full panoply. The woman leapt up, ducking under a burst from Carol’s sapphire, getting close. Carol fired again, meeting a burst from the woman’s hands, each pouring on the energy, putting more and more and more power into it, but they remained evenly matched.

“Arisia, now!”

She barreled into the woman at full speed, the air reverberating as she flew, until—

“No.”

The woman – no, girl, because Carol could see, now that she and Arisia were right against each other, that she was shorter, slighter, smaller – grabbed Arisia by the neck, her hand still glowing with energy.

“I don’t want to kill you, really.” The woman tightened her hand, only slightly. “I sincerely don’t. The only deaths were the one my master commanded. But if your death is what’s needed for the mission, then, uh, I’ll do what I have to do.”

“No!” Carol poured on the fire, doubling down on the blasts of energy, trying desperately to stop the woman, to free Arisia, to no avail. The woman tightened her grip, her hand glowing, about to deliver the killing blow, when –

“Lantern!”

Dela hit Arisia from the side knocking her free, the moment the woman fired. Dela Pharon’s shield splintered, her costume burned, and she fell, spiraling, until she hit the ground, with a sickening _krak_.

“Oh, god.” Carol raised her hand to her mouth. “Dela . . .”

“No!” Arisia recovered, seeing what happened. “I didn’t, I hadn’t . . .”

The woman flew to the ground, and walked to Dela Pharon’s body. It was unearthly, the mirror image of Carol Ferris, the same hair, the same lips, the same body, the same burning sapphire on her brow, but cold, dead, lifeless. The woman stepped, knelt, and plucked the Zamaron Sapphire gem from the tiara.

“Four of five.” She turned, looking up at Carol, and at Arisia, still hovering, mid-air. She raised her hand, and the trident flew to her hand, burning with sapphire fire. “Yours is the last. I’ll be back. And you, too will fall. Your weapon will be mine.”

“I won’t—”

“It doesn’t matter. No one can resist the wrath of Neron. Not even you.”

She slammed the trident to the ground, and vanished, in a burst of brilliant sapphire light. The woman was gone. Only Carol and Arisia, hovering in the air, and the lifeless body of poor Dela Pharon remained.

“Oh, by the ancestors . . .” Arisia lowered herself, slowly, hands to her mouth. “She, she, she sacrificed herself, for, for me . . .”

Carol landed, and walked to Dela Pharon’s body. “We . . . we weren’t friends, by any means. She and I fought, again and again, she brain-washed me, once, tried to replace me and take my place, even marry Hal, once. We weren’t friends at all. But I respected her. A lot. She didn’t deserve that.”

Arisia landed next to Carol, still shocked, taking it all in. “It’s my fault, Carol. She, that woman. That . . . _killer_ , she grabbed me, that was why Dela Pharon died for me. If I had been faster, if I had been smarter, or quicker, she wouldn’t have grabbed me, and . . . it’s my fault, Carol. It’s all my fault.”

“No . . . Arisia, it wasn’t . . . That’s not how you should think of this.” Carol knelt down, hand just inches away from the body. “We need to do something, for the body. We can’t leave it – leave her – like this.”

“Did she have family? Someone we can return the body too? If there’s a someone we should tell, or something like that, we should do that first. Otherwise . . .”

Carol shook her head. “I don’t know. Beyond the fighting for control of a powerful space crystal, we didn’t really know each other. I don’t think so, though. She never spoke of them, at least.”

“Then . . . I don’t know.” Arisia looked down at the older woman. “Should we . . . I guess bury her? I’m not sure.”

“Yeah.” Carol stood up. “Yeah, yeah, we should. Can you dig a grave?”

Arisia, wordlessly, hovered into the air, creating a shovel of light, and started digging, silently. Carol, took a second to brush down Dela Pharon’s costume, burnt from the killer’s shot. Then, she focused, gently pulsing power through her Zamaron Sapphire, hovering the body into the air, gently moving it.

“Is it – are you ready, Arisia?”

The girl nodded, and Carol gently lowered the body into the grave. Arisia replaced the dirt, burying Dela Pharon’s body, deep below the ground.

“We . . . Carol, we should add something. A . . . a marker.”

She nodded. “I’ve got an idea.”

Carol pulsed out a beam of light from her Zamaron Sapphire. She gathered up the dirt, holding it up, and then applied pressure, and burning heat, incredibly hot, fusing the very elements that made up the ground together, and then sanding off edges. Carol focused, pulsing more and more and more energy into the power gem, and then relaxing it, gently backing off as the work was completed.

“It’s . . . that’s very pretty, Carol.”

A glittering sapphire emblem, like the gem that once glittered on Dela Pharon’s brow, that was emblazoned on her waist, stood above the woman’s grave, made of glass, fused from the very elements of the ground, with the help of the sapphire gem and Carol Ferris.

“It’s the least we can do. We let her down, Arisia. It’s my fault. Not yours. We said – _I_ said – that we’d protect her, when we found Remoni-Notra’s body. When you broke me out of Oa. And I failed.”

“Carol, I was the one who made the dumb mistake. I was the one who got caught—"

“Don’t blame yourself.”

Arisia was silent for a second. “We should . . . we should avenge her.”

Carol nodded. “Bring her to justice. Take her to the Green Lantern Corps, have them try her. And, too, we should her from killing again.”

“Killing you, for that matter,” Arisia added. “We just have to find her.”

“That’s easier, I think, then we’d expect,” Carol said. “When left, she said who her overlord was. Neron.”

“Some magic guy, right?”

“Right. A ruler of hell. I met him once.”

Arisia looked at the older woman, surprised. “When?”

Carol shook her head. “Bad memories. I don’t particularly want to talk about it.”

“So . . . how are exactly we going to get to hell, Carol? I, like, only really know one way, the old-fashioned way, and it’s not one that I want to follow.”

“I . . .” Carol thought, for a second, and then looked up. “I’ve got an idea. Let me make some calls.”

For half an hour, Arisia paced back and forth as Carol used her Star Sapphire to contact a whole wide variety of people. Arisia thought she recognized a few of the people – Hal’s old friend and Carol’s employee, Tom Kalamaku, the older – and a little on the heavy side – Blue Beetle, Ted Kord, and the metallic hero, Captain Atom, and then several more, more then Arisia, who had only spent a few years on Earth, working for Hal and Guy Gardner, could recognize. Finally, Carol stopped talking and turned to Arisia.

“I’ve got us a ride.”

“Really? Who?”

Carol stepped back, clearing some space. “After Hal died, and Coast City burned, I spent some time working for one of the Justice Leagues that popped up. Ferris, along with Kord, and one of Booster Gold’s companies, funded Captain Atom’s JLA. I ran the security, and the mechanics, and kept Mount Thunder, their headquarters, running.”

“That’s, like, cool, Carol, but what exactly does that have to do with this?”

“Well, I worked with Captain Atom, and became friends with Captain Atom’s wife, at the time, a former terrorist, named Plastique. I think they’re separated, now. Anyway, Plastique, before she reformed, at Belle Reve, spent some time on the Suicide Squad. In the Squad, she made friends with some of her teammates. Including – now stand back, Arisia—”

BOOM! A portal ripped through the very fabric of space and time, with a deafening echo, ripped from the very depths of darkest hell.

“—the former leader of the warriors of Darkseid, the Female Furies.”

A woman stepped out of the portal, in a black jumpsuit coated with silver bands. “Plastique told me that you ladies needed a ride?”

“Arisia, meet Lashina.”


End file.
